Crimson Flower
by Ana Uchiha
Summary: She tried to be strong. Turns out she wasn't brave enough. SasukeXOC:One shot.


Hello! This would be my first ever serious one-shot. I was working on a chapter for Memoirs, and my creative juices ran out, just like that. So I tried working on a new story that will kind of distract me, and this came out. Tell me what you guys think.

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Naruto.

-

Every word he said stung. Hard. She couldn't imagine what happened to them, neither how it started. It was as if when she woke up, everything between them changed. And she could assure you, it isn't easy.

"I hate you." He spat out for the third time that day. She shrugged at his anger, trying to make him see that his efforts were, as always, futile. She took her headphones and turned up the volume, until she was quite sure she wouldn't be distracted by him anymore.

She cringed when he grasped her wrist real hard. "I'm fucking through with you." He seethed through his teeth. She blinked back tears as she clenched her fists. "You're fucking not the same."

She kept silent at his assaults, just like what she did the other day. She was tired as it is of having him bent out his disappointments at her, every single day. Maybe her defiance was because she still loves him. And she isn't fucking kidding about it.

"I don't love you anymore." His tone was harsh, unfeeling; just like the first time they met. But unbelievably, his tone back then was much kinder. She bit back sobs that came to her throat. She expected him to say that, and she didn't know what to feel about it. Relieved, because it was finally out, or pain, because whatever he says, she still loves him, and will always do.

She ran, as fast as she could, outside. Away from him, away from their situation, away from everything. She found her 'hiding place', in the middle of the woods. She crawled inside the untrimmed bushes and the clumps of trees, until she arrived at a small clearing obscured by wild fauna. Immediately, she felt calm. The moonlight was watching her, trying to see what measures she had up in her sleeves, but both to it, and her disappointment, she didn't make a move.

She dropped the knife in her hands, shaking from the pressure. The scars on her wrists were almost clear now, and the most recent scar had taints of stitches in them. She remembered his expression when he walked in on her as she had been pleasurably cutting the skin of her wrists, feeling not pain, but a tinge of joy at what she was doing.

That was the first time she'd seen him look that angry. He screamed at her and taunted her and wanted her to die. It was also the first time she cried so hard the wounds on her wrist opened. Blood flowed through her dress, and she blacked out.

She remembered waking up at the hospital, without him by her side. She wallowed, for weeks, in depression, at every single day he remained mad at her. The knife she used was confiscated from her, and so the wounds in her wrists itched like crazy. There would be times she became so desperate that she used needles attached at whatever hospital instrument near her is, and pricked herself until the newly treated flesh was raw, or until she bleed to death. He still didn't come.

There were days she were enlightened. She tried to stop convincing herself that cutting is not healthy, that she did. But she needed help, and her case, as far worse than others, needed treatment. The fact that she didn't receive it made her worse. The lack of support and confidence in her by that one boy she entrusted her life into was not, in her opinion, as reliable as he seem to be. He let her wallow and die in self-insufficiency.

There were also days she felt that no hope is in for her. That was the day she managed to stand up, when the nurse wasn't there to check up on her and successfully relocated her knife. Her oh, so, reliable knife. She cut through her wrists, slowly, painfully, remembering every time he didn't visit her at the hospital. Blood stained her pale wrist as she smiled at the crimson liquid pooling around her scars.

She smiled. That's why maybe she liked cutting so much. The color reminded her of his eyes. She felt close to him, as if his love for her never wavered. It was as if his fire rekindled for her. Her crimson blood.

In the remaining seconds of her breath, still, nobody came for her.

-

I patted the newly dug earth in a better shape. "Since you're new in town, I thought I'd let you know." My comrade crouched in front of the blank gravestone. "She was crazy, you know." I looked at him as he continued to stare at the unnamed marble. "She doesn't really belong here. I heard she came here in the midst of confusion. The guards were dispatched around town that time, you see. She thought she was young and that she had a husband and a son."

I kept silent, after hearing the story so many times. "She was completely cuckoo, I tell you. She took residency in that old Uchiha house. She claimed to be the late Uchiha Sasuke's wife."

I brought my eyes onto the still-smooth marble. "She was pretty." I stated. "She could've aged beautifully if she wasn't sick."

My comrade raised an eyebrow. "She was?"

"Yeah." I said. "I learned she was traumatized when the war broke out. Both her husband and son took off to war and didn't come back."

Both my comrade and I fell silent. I let the remaining thoughts escape from my mouth. "The Hokage said she re-wired her brain to think that she was still with her family. It put too much pressure on her that she went..." I tried to look for the right words. "Unstable."

"Pity." Another wave of silence. "Hey, d'you think her husband and kid's alive?"

I shrugged. "We cannot be so sure."

"That would've sucked if they were, though. In her last minute, they were still too late." He sighed as I kept silent. After a minute, he stood up from where he was sitting and patted my back. "I'll see you later, man." And left me there, lost in my own thoughts.

I stared at the grave once more. It was unnamed, unidentified. It seemed better that way. No one would know her; no one would remember how she became sick. Everyone would forgot about her in a few year's time. Everyone except me.

I took off my ANBU mask. My eyes were brimming with tears. I never told her how sorry I was. I never told her how I wished I was more competent to take care of her. I bit back sobs as my eyes, naturally red, let tears flow. I gingerly let down a single white flower upon her gravestone.

"I'm sorry, mom."

-

So tell me what you think. Questions, praises and violent reactions will be happily entertained. Thanks! (REVIEW, please!)


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